A Tale of Pizza.

Another adventure begins...

Today's tale begins with me mindlessly flipping through the (seemingly) millions of letters, notifications, newspapers, books, and magazines that get circulated through my office each day. There're so many that you can't possibly hope to actually read all of them - so you just skim to see if there's anything relevant to you. Usually I am searching for events/places of interest to use in my newsletter and/or this blog.

It was fairly early in the day, and I'm pretty sure I'd had a decent breakfast that morning, but this magazine certainly captured my attention.

As the cover might hint, at least 10, if not more, pages were dedicated to glorious PIZZA! Or rather, establishments throughout Chiba that specialize in pizza. I think there were around 20 places covered, and I am sorely disappointed to say that I'd only been to one of them so far. I'll need to uh, permanently borrow this magazine from my office so I can remedy this problem...

Still, this reminded me that I had yet to take my dear friend to that one restaurant I'd gone to. We were due for a dinner date that weekend, so now we knew where to go!

Ninja shot of the restaurant entrance.

Yep, you guessed right - the wonderful I Love Pizza. Since I was introduced this place last fall, I've managed to come here 3-4 times. Which is fairly impressive for me since I don't think I'm one to eat out that often. I also never really suffered from the "omg I miss real pizza" syndrome that many others do - I actually really like the thin crust pizza that's more common/popular here in Japan (although I must agree that teriyaki chicken, corn, and mayonnaise are not my favorite choice for pizza toppings).

Salsa Caliente Pizza. Just the right punch of spiciness if you like spicy but not intensely painful spicy.

To be totally honest, as a kid I used to hate pizza crust. It was dry, tough, and bland. Maybe I only had crummy pizza in the US up until now? But I Love Pizza...is totally different. You can see (who I assume is) the owner/chef hand-tossing the pizza in the kitchen after you've placed your order. When it comes out, the pizza crust is fresh, perfectly crispy on the outside and wonderfully fluffy on the inside.

You can order pizzas in small, medium, or large sizes - beware, the larges are actually pretty big, comparable to a pizza you'd get back home. We ordered 2 larges, and while we didn't regret it, it was like fighting a losing battle. The pizza got the better of us, and we had to take the leftovers home.

The Love's Special...aka a Supreme Pizza.

When you're living in Japan (or abroad for that matter), every once in awhile you get struck by the "gaaaaaah I want to eat (insert name of food from back home)" panic attack. If you have an uncontrollable urge to eat good, authentic American pizza, I Love Pizza might just be the cure.